I, like many, have ignore the early tours with Brent foolish us.
This first night of Brent's first fall tour features some great playing and is wonderful audience source. Many of these audiences from late '79-'81 are expcetional quality and many also have been upgraded to 24 bit.

Dave L. played the Scarlet> Fire as one of the 30 Days of Dead and I was impressed, as it is extremely well played and fresh sounding as well.

The entire second set is extremely good. Bobby and company lay down a ripping Samson. Terrapin is nice, but Jerry does have a major memory lapse on one of the last verses before the bridge. The PITB is young for this band but is still a fun version.

The post space features an epic version of Wharf Rat, which features swirling B3 from Brent, which clearly Jerry loves. This almost drop into Around but instead a formidable PITB Reprise is thrown down to end the set, short but sweet.

They send the faithful into the autumn night with a blistering version of Johnny B. Goode.

First show of phenomenal fall 1979 tour. Still warming up. I'm with kbmill, big fan of the Playing sandwich, not just from this show. But this one is nice, too, and to my ears is the show highlight. It makes its way though about 11-minutes of drums/space to Wharf Rat and back (after what sounds like an aborted Around and Around).

The SBD version is much higher quality of course, but this version puts you right in the crowd and you can feel the energy of both the band and the audience, everyone clapping and yelling. Almost like being there. I give this copy 3 stars for quality, but 5 stars for energy.

I'm a big fan of the split Playing in the Band. I just love the notion that they could wander away from it and manage to find their way back. I also like the playing reprise as the walk-off - just makes sense.


Like the sound of the Sennheiser mics that made this recording.

Just listened to this show for the first time in years. Was at this show and a friend of mine made a great recording of it. What stands out about this show is Jerry's guitar tone. Especially the second set. He is just ripping it down and dirty for most of the set. The band had some new energy with Brent and it really shows here. Nice to hear it again after all these years. Thanks once again to Charlie Miller. As I have said before your debt can never be paid.

Great show, killer recording. Predictably flowing and sinuous 2nd set, funny Around abortion before Playin Reprise which has nice ending

This show probably gets eclipsed by other classic moments of 1979. But, played just a few days prior to historic and singular shows at Cape Cod, MA, the boys were clearly in fine form and jamming loud and long. While many songs were repeated from show-to-show on this tour, we must remember this was Brent Mydland's, (RIP), first full east-coaster with the band. He was fitting in just fine, relieving the dormant keyboards of Keith and nicely covering Donna's mostly off-key harmonies. No wonder Jerry was grinning so much! This show was pretty good for a tired old arena in a tired old New England town. It's always sweet to hear Terrapin and the Playin' in the Band before and after drums is always a nice treat. The boys were really teeing up some of the newer tunes like Lost Sailor/Saint and Althea, while bringing new energy to the New & Improved Minglewood Blues, Sampson & Delilah and Warf Rat. Scarlet Fire had always been a great pair, but while missing out on Donna's unique vocal improvs at the end of Scarlet Begonias, Brent's keyboards more than made up for it. Good stuff. Decent quality audience recording. Thank you, gentlemen. - Jester